So my new realm dothlam is out. My main focus with this realm was to make the most out of the game's strategic elements. Stuff including:

-Laying out villages in a way that is open ended and makes viable/useful options out of recruiting/razing certain villages-Trying to make the time limit mechanic work with the game. Using the time limit to pressure players to make choices that very based on how the rng elements work (mainly keeping track of how reinforcements are distributed to lords, considering that in your strategic choices. Objectives are also placed in through encounters to add to the time management/strategy aspect. Completing objectives will reverse banishing, buying you precious days so you can factor that into your planning. -Providing a decent challenge for village reinforcements, through lord reinforcements and limiting time that pushes you towards to make concessions (i.e not being able to just max out all of the villages and steam rolling everything.)

I feel that I've done the best that i could...perhaps there are some oversights in how i laid it out, but i feel like if nothing else it could provide a good testing bed for players and even the developers if they are wanting to mess with realm mechanics down the road and want some ideas of how villages could work in the hypothetical update.

Just thought i'd drop this here. would love feedback on it!

Last edited by anjovi on Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:11 am, edited 2 times in total.

I'm mid-Realm atm but will give it ago next (bug me to hurry up! ). You know my personal view on villages but I suspect anything that gives people an idea on how to increase their role would be a good thing

I'm hoping more then anything that others might come to the same observations as me and perhaps even the devs might find it a good way to fine tune village mechanics (villager generation rate, cards given, upgrading, etc.)

it'll probably feel fairly disjointed in places, but that might be a good thing if it allows for feedback to devs.

So I've just got the plot and layout of the next realm done, just a matter of writing all of the encounters and making tweaks as i go. It follows the same objective theme as dothlam (west/east wizards and shield shrines) though their are some differences beyond that (objective wise as well as layout of the map)

Any feedback on dothlam would be helpful for the next in the series (E-something..lol) if you've got any. I imagine chaos mode is quite different from law mode (i generally base it on chaos mode as law mode still doesn't seem balanced yet) although i'm tending to favor law mode all the same for realms stuffs.

For some reason goblin/dwarf villages feel a little OP. I think it has to do with how fast their reinforcements spawn (giant/vampire villages seem to be quite slower, i'm assuming it has to do with the point values for each creature) I feel like goblins and dwarves could spawn a wee bit slower.

I'm also curious for feedback as i've been thinking about making a youtube tutorial video on little tricks i use for realm design if folks are interested in my observations and such...might help them work out the puzzle/gamey aspect of their realms, assuming my realms are really balanced properly xD

What i went for here was the strategy dynamic of dothlam (managing villages, sub-quests, - banish spell rewards for said quests, the time you spend going to each destination, etc.) but on a bigger scale. There doesn't seem to be an optimal path as rng will deal you different reinforcement spreads each playthrough.

Although all of the 'strategic' stuff i'm going on about won't matter much at all if you go through it with a pal. Might be something to play around with if your going solo. The time pressure seems to be about right. What i found is the main issue is if:

1) if I reward too much '- points banishing spell' (when completing quests/ reaching landmarks) it trivializes the choices in villages. Basically you get that scenario were you can comfortably sit on a village until it gets it's max reinforcement count.

2) If i reward too little '- points banishing spell' It pushes the player to just race through point A to B to C, etc before reinforcements can build up.

It seemed that finding the middle ground for the '- banishing spell' variable was enough to allow the villages to be viable, while allowing the reinforcement distribution to do it's thing.

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while playtesting the realm and pondering, i generally came up with these thoughts:-If marauders just spawned with troops as opposed to spawning + taking troops from the citadel/palace, the spawning of a marauder seems to trivialize the citadel/palace somewhat. Why not just have the Pts. be spent on creating a marauder's backup as opposed to having them spread the citadel/palaces forces?-I feel like marauders in the context of this realm would be an interesting way of increasing the tension in a realm. They'd add a well paced difficulty curve that the player could anticipate as well as force you to fortify defensive positions to deal with the increasing onslaught.-Nerfing the goblin/dwarf settlements to pump out less troops...or perhaps even nerfing villages could make player's really feel each blow and appreciate each villager that they can squeeze out for/inbetween battles.

I just finished Eman and since I'm the only one done it so far I thought you like to have my input as an avid follower of your realms ( I conquered them all ).

Let's get to the point

Pros :We talked about Doltham a bit, the construction of both realms are similar but in Eman everything is so spread and hidden that I had to discover everything in my first run, memorize and begin the realm anew in 2nd play through. Personally I like the spread more, it is more fun to wander around the realm (on the other hand it makes you do the realm at least twice).

I think it is the first time that you put side quests in your lvl 12 realms. I very much like it.

I accidentally skipped the west lord shrine ( I didn't think it could be where it showed me xD ), doing the side quests, recruiting some villages and some missteps here and there, the timing of this realm was way better than Doltham (more time pressure).

Being able to acquire mercs on different places over the map in contrast to getting it forcibly like in Wizardly COOP 2 (was it ?).

Cons:Manaflux positioned between 2 towers guarded by marauders that kept spawning and coming to recapture. Interesting idea, but fighting over and over on the same map ? I didn't find it attractive.

Villages being so close to marauders, I still don't think it's worth it to recruit them. If you can add a time delay between recruiting a village and marauder coming to recapture it, it would be way better.

Side quests rewarding only reverse banishing spell, does it worth it to do them in this realm ? My finding was : definitely not.

I like a good story in a realm but oh god there were so much text to read I found myself skipping lines and words just to finish it and get on with the realm.

Thank you so much lion! It`s very interesting to see another's take on it. I'm glad you liked the layout, i wanted to try to make it more immersive, like your exploring and what not. I added a method for a player to scout out the whole map for lords to help with strategizing.

For the marauder fights, the way i've mitigated that same map battle was positioning the villagers on the marauder's path that is away from the flux. The marauders will generally follow the same path depending on were they spawn and there priorities. Tried to make a few chokes to, although it probably depends on which villages you've recruited to...I found myself recruiting multiple villages and placing them on forest tiles, or on the actual wizard towers to were the wizards would pop through.

Otherwise when i recruit the first village what i'll do is work a little meticulously, inching towards objectives and managing villagers, keeping the first wave of marauders in mind...though i can see how that might not appeal to many..heh

Otherwise i think what i'll do if i make another like this is try to tackle these cons, Might try something similar to what i did with Cathal (with how the marauder path opens after a trigger) otherwise I agree that i went a little insane with the word count and generally trying to mitigate any of the battle on the same terrain.

I think i'm going to go for a little more minimalist approach (in terms of story, and focus more on the game mechanics...might go for an abstracted objectives that are more plain as opposed to trying to dress them up in a narrative context if that makes sense)

okay! So just saw that Fumil made it up today. So with that I figure i'd update the post. So this realm, goes a little more intrusive with the village recruitment....it's mandatory to actually fight 3 wizards with them. Played with a secondary objective that sees players traveling around the map while their villages develop. The Marauders will actually make most of the wizard on wizard action (and they are helpful for gaining kudos/influence for gaining villages/mercs)

So it's a ways different than the previous 2. Anyone who plays it and wants to drop a comment on it, feel free to do so.